B-52G info: better late than never

 B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, bomber, hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, Patreon catalog  1 Response »
Nov 182021
 

My book on the B-52 is now being printed (I understand that copies physically exist), so it is perhaps a little late for additions and revisions. Still, I remain on the lookout for relevant information. To that end I recently plunked down a fair chunk of change for a pair of documents on ebay… a set of blueprints of the B-52G cockpit, and a B-52G mockup review. I eagerly await their arrival. I have high hopes that the US Postal Service won’t drop a tractor axle dipped in anthrax onto the package.

These will likely end up in the catalog for monthly rewards. If they are of interest, and/or if you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 

 

 Posted by at 2:07 am

A3J-1 Vigilante

 bomber, hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon  No Responses »
Nov 182021
 

Back in the day, aerospace companies would actively court the public, including those crazy kids who liked to make models. To that end, a number of aerospace companies would release surprisingly nice diagrams of their aircraft. North American Aviation was one such company, and one of their aircraft that they diagrammed for the public was the A3J-1 (later A-5) Vigilante supersonic carrier based bomber. Oddly, I’ve had trouble finding the full scale print of this… but then, I’ve had trouble finding *most* of the ones released by North American. Seems that they tended to not survive to make it to ebay. However, I recently acquired a copy of an old magazine that had the Vigilante diagram, reproduced reasonably well. Woo.

A 300 dpi scan of the diagram has been made available to $4 and up patrons/subscribers in the 2021-11 APR Extras Dropbox folder. A 600 dpi scan has been made available to above-$10 patrons/subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 1:56 am

October 2021 APR Rewards

 hi-rez, launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, research, rockets, space station, spacecraft, transports  No Responses »
Oct 312021
 

The rewards for October, 2021, have been sent out. Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

Document: “C-131C Tactical Unit Support Airplane,” 1953 Consolidated Vultee briefing on cargo aircraft military capabilities

Document: “Aerodynamic Model test Report Titan IIIM Final Posttest Report 0.0535 scale Force and Pressure Model Phase II,” 1967 Martin Report Of Unusual Size (ROUS, 353 pages) describing with charts, data, model photos and diagrams, of the proposed Titan IIIM topped with a Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

Diagram: General Arrangement of the Douglas D-558 research aircraft (provenance unknown)

CAD Diagram (for $5-level and up): Medusa Spinnaker, second illustration of giant but lightweight nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. *ALL* back issues, one a month since 2014, are available for subscribers at low cost.



 Posted by at 5:44 pm

PDF review: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous News Conference

 launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, PDF Review, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 192021
 

I recently came across something on ebay that looked interesting; the buy-it-now price is a bit steep, so I googled it. Huzzah! It’s available online as a PDF. D’oh: my antivirus program freaked out that the connection to the university website is insecure. Huzzah! It has been archived on the Wayback machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210627145321/http://users.umiacs.umd.edu/~oard/apollo/LOR_News_Conference.pdf

This is a writeup, with photos and diagrams, of the July 11, 1962 news conference at NASA headquarters where the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous technique was described. prior to the the understanding was that the Apollo Command and Service Modules would land directly on the lunar surface; this sounds easy, but required a bigger booster than the Saturn V and would have put the astronauts far above the lunar surface (so far as I know, no determination of how exactly the astronauts were going to get some fifty or more feet down, and then fifty or more feet back up). LOR entailed the use of the Lunar Excursion Module,a  small, lightweight spacecraft that could zip on down the the surface from lunar orbit and then hop on back up. Far less mass needed to go to the lunar surface, meaning the planned Saturn C-5 (later Saturn V) could take care of the whole mission in one shot. No need to assemble spacecraft in Earth orbit using multiple launches of hardware and propellant tankers.

Support the APR Patreon to help bring more of this sort of thing to light! Alternatively, you can support through the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.

 Posted by at 2:36 pm

RL-10 in action

 launch vehicles, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 102021
 

A photo taken from the first stage of a Saturn I showing the second stage’s six RL-10 rocket engines firings, boosting the S-IV stage towards orbit. Also visible are four orange-yellow exhaust plumes from ullage rockets… solid rockets that provide just enough acceleration to the stage to settle the liquid propellants at the bottoms of the tanks (otherwise the turbines might suck down vapor rather than liquid and that would be a Very Bad Thing).

Photo was from a 1965 magazine advertisement for Pratt & Whitney, manufacturer of the RL-10 engine. The full rez scan of the ad has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-10 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 7:53 pm

September 2021 APR Rewards

 hi-rez, Monthly Historical Documents Program, nukes, Patreon, research, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 062021
 

Yeesh. I continue to successfully get rewards out to Patrons and subscribers in a timely fashion… but I also continue to fail to publicize the fact. Last day of September, the rewards for that month were sent out. The September 2021 rewards included:

Diagram: “Early X-3 cutaway:” A large format cutaway illustration of a not-quite-final Douglas X-3 configuration

CAD Diagram: the command module of the Solem “Medusa” nuclear pulse propelled spacecraft

Document: a giant 1100+ page “Data Sheets for Ordnance Type Materiel,”1962 US Army “catalog”of pretty much all their stuff. Includes an illustration (often, though not always, including a basic diagram) and data for everything from trucks to tanks to bayonets to pistols to rockets.

Patrons should have received a notification message through Patreon linking to the rewards; subscribers should have received a notification from Dropbox linking to the rewards. If you did not, let me know.

 

If this sort of thing is of interest, sign up either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 4:07 pm

Baade Type 152 ad

 hi-rez, jetliner, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, transports  No Responses »
Sep 232021
 

The Baade Type 152 was an East German airliner, started 1955 and cancelled in 1961. It would have been a fantastic design immediately after WWII, but by the time it actually flew it was going up against far more modern designs such as the 707. Nevertheless, here’s an ad from 1960 trying to sell this dinosaur to the airlines of the world.

 

 

The full rez scan of the adn has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-09 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 9:29 pm

L-2000 exploded view

 hi-rez, jetliner, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, transports  No Responses »
Sep 102021
 

An exploded view of the Lockheed L-2000 SST project from the 1960’s. This was the second-place finisher in the contest to develop a US supersonic transport, losing to the Boeing 2707. The 2707 won in part because it had variable-sweep wings, giving it better low speed performance… but after the contest was won, Boeing’s design shed the overly-heavy variable geometry for fixed wings not unlike those of the Lockheed design. In the end that couldn’t save the 2707 from the chopping block. Many have wondered over the last half-century what might have happened had Lockheed won the contract instead. Perhaps the sky would be filled with SSTs. Perhaps the L-2000 would have been a failure of historic proportions, with prototypes crashing or exploding in flight. Or perhaps it would have turned out just like the 2707… once detailed development began costs would have ballooned, performance suffered and Congress simply walked away.

The full article this came from has been scanned at 300 DPI (the image above was scanned at an additional, higher rez) and provided to all above-$10 subscribers and Patrons. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



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 Posted by at 2:39 pm
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